


New Year’s Day

by mithborien



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-02-07
Updated: 2006-02-07
Packaged: 2017-10-19 14:16:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/201776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mithborien/pseuds/mithborien
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It wasn’t running away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	New Year’s Day

The Prophecy had been implicit.

The dust and spells had settled, bodies grown cold and the vast battleground was quiet. Life and legend had finally abandoned Lord Voldemort and Harry was left staring at the tormented remains of Tom Riddle.

He was supposed to be alone, or at least that’s what he had believed. So many people had died leading up to this moment, this final confrontation that Harry had truly convinced himself that if he survived, no one else would. So that is why it came as a great surprise to Harry Potter that he wasn’t alone after all.

Of course, the irony of it just plain sucked arse.

“Malfoy?” Harry dropped to his knees in shock, ignoring the dirt and blood and wreckage surrounding him and laughed. Just for the hell of it.

Because he couldn’t remember the last time he had something to laugh about and Draco Bloody Malfoy standing there with a sulky, insulted expression on his face was as good as reason to laugh as any. Only when his throat started to become raw, did he make an effort to stop because all things considered, dying from laughter would seem rather anti-climatic after defeating the darkest wizard of all time. Or rather apt. Harry didn’t think he was up to telling the difference anymore.

“Potter,” Malfoy finally snarled in return, hand clenching around his wand. “Something you find amusing?”

Harry shook his head but he could feel the laughter bubbling up through his chest again. In truth, he didn’t find anything about this situation funny. The battlefield surrounding him wasn’t funny and neither were the dead bodies that he refused to try and identify but it’s either laugh or try to kill the figure before him and he’s had enough of killing. Plus, he figured that laughter would piss Malfoy off more.

When Harry finally managed to look up again, Malfoy was staring at him like he still expected an answer, or an insult, or a hex to the head.

“Nice night for a walk,” Harry tried, voice cracking which made him burst into laughter again and start choking. But that was okay because the more he laughed, the more his eyes watered and the more his eyes watered, the more blood that would be washed from his face.

When he could finally breathe again, Malfoy was sitting down beside him, picking at one jagged tear in his sleeve. “You’re in shock,” he said, giving the patented arrogant Malfoy glare.

Harry smiled. “Probably.”

He had marched into the last battle with a hundred comrades at his side and the nauseating feeling none were going to survive. He didn’t need to take a look around and confirm that fact, his heart already knew otherwise. No one, not even Dumbledore if he had still been alive, would have expected the sheer volume of magic that Harry had conjured up to destroy Voldemort and he could still feel the remnants of that power tingling through his fingertips.

“You knew how this was going to end, didn’t you?” Malfoy accused. “You knew exactly what was going to happen.”

Harry could remember the exact moment when he realised he wasn’t just a boy, wasn’t just a poor, unwanted orphan that the Dursley’s only kept because they didn’t know what else to do with him. He could remember the moment exactly when he realised he was different, that moment of pure exultant relief when he realised things would be better.

He had that moment again when Voldemort died, the knowledge that things were going to be better. That this madness was going to end and somehow, he believed with all his heart, somehow things were going to be okay.

That moment was gone now and all that was left was the taste of blood and the smell of despair.

“Potter! I asked you a fucking question!”

For a brief moment it seemed that they were back at Hogwarts and were seconds away from drawing their wands and trying to hex each other heads off. But then Harry blinked, took the time to actually turn and look at Malfoy and realised the fact that while the boy who was sitting next to him had once been a sworn enemy, it didn’t seem that important anymore. The fight was over. Battles had been fought and won. There were no more ideals to defend or prophecies to die for. Loyalties were no longer being called into question and it didn’t matter whose life you were trying to save because they were all dead now.

“I didn’t know,” Harry said softly. “I didn’t know it was going to end like this.” And that’s true enough in its own way. Harry had been dealing in secrets from the moment he was born, hiding the truth behind the lies with or without his consent.

“So what happens now?” Malfoy finally asked and Harry jumped at his voice. It was amazing how quiet the night had become. He knew that Ron and Hermione’s bodies were lying somewhere in the dirt behind him. They were fighting by his side until the very end. Ginny fell some time before that. The tangled remains of Remus Lupin were somewhere off to the right. Greyback ripped him apart before a group of Aurors were able to take him down. They were then taken out by a group of Death Eaters and the bloody cycle continued.

Harry blinked. He knew it wasn’t right that his mind kept wandering. His hands kept shaking and he couldn’t remember where his wand had got to.

“We move on,” he said quietly, finally pulling his thoughts together. “Things will get better.” It’s the only hope he has left. Every other one had died tonight. He pushed himself to his feet and started to walk away. As far as he was concerned, Malfoy could do whatever the fuck he wanted. It didn’t matter anymore.

“Where are you going?” Malfoy cried after him and Harry wondered if he should feel a tiny bit of glee at the panic in his voice.

“I told you,” he called back. “I’m moving on.”

“Yeah, but where?”

Harry stopped, turned around and frowned. “What do you mean where?”

Malfoy rolled his eyes. “Oh for god’s sake, Potter. It’s time you outgrew your delusions. You think just because your side won that things are going to get better? It wouldn’t have made a difference who won.”

Harry just stared at him. “Voldemort was evil. He had to die.”

Malfoy just smiled slightly and looked back out of the corner of his eyes. “Voldemort wasn’t evil. No more than your Minister is. He just had a different way of running things, a better way if you ask me.”

“His way was wrong,” Harry said tightly. “People got hurt.”

“And people didn’t get hurt under the Ministry?” Malfoy replied slyly. “People didn’t get hurt under you?”

Harry swallowed desperately, his mind trying to deny what Malfoy was saying even as his heart screamed that he couldn’t.

“Things will get better,” he stammered. “It will be different this time. This night changed everything and things will get better because of it.” He turned around and started to walk away again. He didn’t need to listen to this but Malfoy didn’t give him that chance.

“Don’t you get it,” Malfoy yelled after him. “All that people will remember from this night is that over three hundred people died because of _you_. They won’t remember that Voldemort died or that you saved their ungrateful arses, just like no one remembers the fact that your parents died because they only remember that you had lived.”

The final battle had occurred on the anniversary of Voldemort’s first defeat, a fact that Harry thought rather appropriate and tragically ironic. That day was also the anniversary of his parent’s death, the day that his entire family, blood or otherwise had been ripped away from him.

Harry stopped walking, or at least stopped staggering across the uneven ground. There was something wrong with his foot.

“What are you talking about?” he asked slowly because subtleties would be lost on him at the moment and he wanted a straight answer.

Malfoy sighed and swore under his breath. “Haven’t you read this history books? All heroes must fall, whether it by the hand of their enemies or by their friends.”

Harry sighed as well and ran a hand through his hair, absently trying to get the blood and ash out of it.

“Whatever,” he finally said. He hadn’t listened to Malfoy’s bullshit for years and if the prick wasn’t going to give him an answer he could understand then he didn’t care. He looked around, the after glow of magic disorientating him.

“We should wait until someone shows up,” he said, lowering himself gently to the ground.

Malfoy laughed and when Harry looked up there was a manic grin on his face. Harry now realised how annoying it was when another person was laughing and you had no idea what was so funny. He didn’t regret doing it to Malfoy though.

“Who do you think is going to show up?” Malfoy finally said. “No one is going to welcome you back. No one is going to want you around. What? Did you think they were going to welcome you back with a parade? A medal? An offer to become the god damned Minister of Magic? You single-handedly are the cause of wiping out half the British Wizarding population. All of your friends are dead, all of your allies and if you go back to the Ministry they will _Crucio_ you.” There was a pleasure to his voice that went beyond a simple childhood grudge. Barely an hour ago they were enemies, heart and soul enemies who would have tortured, abused and killed each other to keep the ones they cared about safe but that time was over now and Harry hated the fact that he had no idea where they both stood.

“Just wait and see the way that they’ll look at you,” Malfoy continued. “They aren’t going to see a hero. They’ll see a monster. And all of your good intentions and high ideals will get buried alive.”

“But I saved them…” Harry started. “If it hadn’t been for me… Voldemort would have, he would have destroyed everything.”

“I know,” Malfoy said simply and Harry imagined that he could detect a hint of sympathy in his voice. He then wondered just how badly in shock he was. “But _they_ don’t and the only thing they will see is the fact that you destroyed everything else instead.”

If he wanted to, if he needed the confirmation, Harry could look around and see the destruction Malfoy was talking about. He could walk around and identify the dead bodies and the places where they made their last stands but those details were already burned completely into his mind and seeing them again would only make things worse. All he wanted to do was get out of here. Escape the reality that was crashing down around him.

His eyes finally fixed on the blurring figure of Malfoy before him. The boy or rather man now (no one was a child anymore) who only joined the Death Eaters to save his father. Who agreed to kill Dumbledore but hadn’t the guts to keep to his promises. Who tried to _Crucio_ him in a bathroom and who hours before had been launching spells against his friends.

Harry wondered why all that didn’t seem to matter any more. Not when he weighed that against the horrors he had committed to save his own loved ones. Not when he failed.

“They aren’t exactly going to be too happy to see you either,” he replied viscously.

Malfoy laughed again. “You think I don’t know that. I am the son of one of the greatest Death Eaters in history. My father could just have easily become the next Voldemort… and I could just have easily been my father.”

Harry sighed. “What’s your point?”

“We can’t stay here,” Malfoy replied sharply.

Harry looked around and saw the devastation. There were brief flashes of light here and there in the distance and unfamiliar sounds rang out through the hazy smoke of broken spells. People were coming, Harry thought foggily. Rescuers or maybe just the curious who thought the worst was over. The smoke hid the dead bodies and the way blood stained the ground. They wouldn’t realise the extent of the carnage until they would be knee deep in it.

And all he could think about was how everything would be okay. Malfoy didn’t know shit. They would realise what had happened here, that he killed Voldemort. That he won, he saved the day. _Everything would be okay._

When Harry failed to respond, Malfoy dragged him to his feet. “Get it through your pathetic Gryffindor mind that no one is going to want you around.”

Harry blinked. He wanted to cry but he was damned if he was going to do it in front of Malfoy. He jerked his body sharply, slapping away Malfoy’s hands. “So why the hell are you telling me this?” he snapped. “I would have thought you’d be glad to see me crucified as a result of this.”

Malfoy paused. “I would be. I still hate you Potter,” he said, like a simple fact. “That isn’t going to change. You caused the death of every person I ever cared about. But then you probably caused the death of everyone you cared about so I guess we’re even.” He sighed. “But you’re the only person left who is going to remember what it was like.”

Harry shook his head. “What was like?”

“That there are some things worth fighting for, even if it means sacrificing the people you love. That there is more to life than petty arguments and-”

Harry interrupted. “You do realise that all our interaction before this war consisted of petty arguments and the occasional hex.”

Malfoy grinned. “Yeah, but that was before the war. You’re the only person left who is going to remember what it was like to fight. What it took. The kind of person it made you.”

Harry closed his eyes. He knew exactly what Malfoy meant. How that first battle changed you and how your first kill cemented the person you would become. “What are you getting at?”

“We don’t belong here,” Malfoy murmured softly.

Harry laughed. “Well, I’m not stopping you from leaving.”

Malfoy nodded, suddenly serious. “But I don’t want to leave here alone, because I don’t think I can survive knowing that everyone else died and yet I stayed alive.”

Harry didn’t think he could survive either but admitting that meant admitting he had something in common with Malfoy and even a small victory was cherished at this point. “Everyone did die,” he murmured instead.

“Everyone except you,” Malfoy replied earnestly and Harry looked up to see that his eyes were bereft of cruelness and mocking.

“What the fuck are you saying?” Harry blurted out.

Malfoy groaned and threw up his hands. “I’m saying come with me.”

Harry looked around. “Where?”

“Anywhere,” Malfoy replied and Harry was scared when his voice retained that calm, even tone. As if Malfoy wasn’t joking. At all. “Anywhere but here because we can’t stay and if we did we would just make things worse. This isn’t our world anymore because everything that made it our world died tonight.”

“But the Ministry…” Harry tried to focus on anything besides what he thought Malfoy was proposing.

“Is in shatters and I don’t think they would appreciate you taking over and telling them what to do, if that’s how you thought things were going to be.”

“I didn’t mean…” Harry mumbled. “What about Hogwarts?”

“In the hands of the Governors, people who surprisingly enough actually finished their education.”

Harry frowned. “What about the public? They’ll want to know what happened.”

Malfoy shrugged. “You think they would believe you if you told them. Let them make up their own lies. They’ll be happier and you will be better remembered in their minds.”

There were no more questions and if there were Harry didn’t think he would like the answers. He hadn’t liked the answers so far, even if they were starting to make sense.

“This isn’t running away,” Malfoy said suddenly, as if Harry had accused him or to assuage the doubts that may or may not have been running through his head. “We are just doing what needs to be done. Sparing whoever the hell is left the difficultly of dealing with us.”

Harry didn’t think when he raised his hand but it was easier than he expected and maybe he just couldn’t think of another option. Draco’s hand was cold and just like old times he may have tried to break Harry’s fingers but there was a grim determination in his eyes and Harry finally got it.

They weren’t running, because Malfoys never run and they weren’t giving up because Harry didn’t think he knew how. But they were moving on because Draco was right. The world they had once called their own had died here tonight and there was no going back to it.

And as they Apparated, Harry kept holding onto Draco’s hand because even though they hated each other they may have just finally understood each other. Understood the way they had fought because of the way they were afraid of losing.

He didn’t feel any regrets either. He felt grief and sadness and guilt and pain but not regret because while nobody would ever realise exactly what had happened here tonight, would never know what had been lost and what had been saved, Harry was holding onto the one person who would.


End file.
